So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When duty whispers low, “Thou must,” The youth replies, “I can.” These are but two instances of many that may be cited. No author is, perhaps, more enjoyed by those who understand him. He was a master of language. He never used the wrong word. His sentences are models. But he was not a logical or methodical writer. Every sentence stands by itself. His paragraphs might be arranged almost at random without essential loss to the essays. His philosophy consists largely in an array of golden sayings full of vital suggestions to help men make the best and most of themselves. He had no compact system of philosophy. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803, within “A kite-string of the birth place of Benjamin Franklin” with whom he is frequently compared. The likeness, however, consists only in the fact that they were both decidedly representative Americans of a decidedly different type. Franklin was prose, Emerson poetry; Franklin common sense, real; Emerson imaginative, ideal. In these opposite respects they both were equally representative of the highest type. Both were hopeful, kindly and shrewd. Both equally powerful in making, training and guiding the American people. In his eighth year young Emerson was sent to a grammar school, where he made such rapid progress, that he was soon able to enter a higher department known as a Latin school. His first attempts at writing were not the dull efforts of a school boy; but original poems which he read with real taste and feeling. He completed his course and graduated from Harvard College at eighteen. It is said that he was dull in mathematics and not above the average in his class in general standing; but he was widely read in literature, which put him far in advance, perhaps, of any young man of his age. After graduating, he taught school for five years in connection with his brother; but in 1825, gave it up for the ministry. For a time he was pastor of a Unitarian Congregation in Boston; but his independent views were not in accordance with the doctrine of his church, therefore, he resigned in 1835, and retired to Concord, where he purchased a home near the spot on which the first battle of the Revolution was fought in 1775, which he commemorated in his own verse:―― “There first the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.” In this city, Emerson resided until the day of his death, which occurred in Concord, April 27, 1882, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Illustration: HOME OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, CONCORD, MASS.